'spoons' on Serious Eats

Each year the winner of the World Porridge Making Championship takes home the Golden Spurtle Trophy—the spurtle being a a rod-like kitchen tool from Scotland used to stir oatmeal while it cooks—but this year's winner didn't spurtle his way to victory. The 2010 champion Neal Robertson attributed his perfect porridge to the water from the hills above Auchtermuchty, Scotland, where he runs The Tannochbrae Tearoom, and his use of a Spon instead of the traditional spurtle. More

Short of being born a woman in Italy and waiting for your daughter to have a child, nothing makes you feel like an Italian grandmother more than slowly and deliberately stirring a lazily simmering pot of ragú with a wooden spoon.More

We demand a lot of our most basic kitchen tools—wooden spoons, slotted spoons, spatulas and flippers are used for anything and everything when we cook. It's strange to think that they've rarely evolved to better suit the hundreds of functions we employ them with, but that's just what Epicurean's gourmet series of utensils sets out to do. More

[Photograph: Matt Brown] We mentioned Matt Brown's self-slicing pizza concept yesterday, but the Italy-based interaction/industrial designer has also come up with the Flavor Spoon, a prototype gadget that may eventually rescue even Salpico's mother-in-law's cooking This is a two part spoon, the pink part can hold garlic or other chunky spices, and when the white part is put over it, every bit you take will have some of the extra flavor you have inside. I've tried just eating hot water with it (while the had spoon garlic and peppers inside) and it actually worked. Of course, if you were to use it to give some flavor to a bad cook's meal, you'd probably have to make up an elaborate... More

There's something about a cold metal spoon, especially the long ones for parfait glasses, to shovel up ice cream. The metal probably isn't helping the ozone layer or saving panda bears, but it's just one of those things you... More

A Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shade of figs. While Greece is great for the salty fiends (olives, feta, and Santorini capers), there are plenty of opportunities to get cavities there too. Syrup-submerged fruits and nuts known as spoon sweets are common to eat alone or with cheese, and for years have symbolized sweet hospitality. A couple we visited wouldn't let us leave with a net-zero calorie intake, so they pulled out the coffee and little plates for spoon sweets. It was something like the Greek answer to British teatime.... More

In Muskego, Wisconsin, a chef hit an armed robber over the head with a big aluminum spoon. The spoon broke in half, according to the complaint, and the offender was later charged with armed robbery and drug possession. Mission accomplished. [via Obscure Store]... More

If you're a perpetual doodler, even when taking a coffee break, Spanish artist Julie Mariscal has the thing for you: the Writing Spoon, which features an incision at its tip that turns it into a makeshift fountain pen. You can buy it online at Vinçon (€20.86) as part of Ferran Adrià's Faces Collection of designer kitchenware and tableware. Watch the spoon in action after the jump.... More

Remember the scene in Hook when Rufio's bangarang fighting words inspired an all-out food fight brawl in Never-Never-Land? Too bad the Lost Boys didn't have this state-of-the-art Zing! catapult spoon for optimal launching of pretend food. The built-in spring means less spoon deaths by way of breaking at the utensil's neck. [via Boing Boing Gadgets]... More

My friend John told me the other day that his son was at the stage where he was only willing to eat if John pretended the spoon was a plane or train en route to his little mouth. I sent him a link this morning to Babyplane, a spoon with a little plastic plane built around it, and he wrote back to call it a scientific breakthrough, saying, "You could actually TRIPLE the amount of food that gets into a toddler with that spoon." $15 at Pylones, in blue or pink.... More